


Consummation

by telluric_cry (perihadion)



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: (sort of), Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Post-Game, Enemies to Lovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 12:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24849721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/telluric_cry
Summary: Aerith and Sephiroth orbiting each other in the lifestream for millennia after the end ofFinal Fantasy VII. (Ignores theCompilationand theRemake.)
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth, Implied Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife, implied Cloud Strife/Tifa Lockhart
Comments: 12
Kudos: 77





	Consummation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belderiver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belderiver/gifts).



In the last moment, Aerith cracked the world open. She pushed her will out through the cracks just as she had in Mideel. For just a moment she and the planet were one entity, pushing against Meteor with all its might.

When it was over she felt his presence — and all its hardened, dark edges — almost at once. He was folded in on himself, utterly destroyed. Vulnerable, almost like a child. His mind reached out to her and she found herself reaching back.

He was sitting, knees pulled into himself. Aerith wondered how often Sephiroth had adopted this pose as a child as he was raised by Hojo. She wondered how similar their childhoods had been as she knelt in front of him and placed her hand on his head.

“Mother?” he said. His voice sounded strange to her, soft and tender. Had he mistaken her for Lucrecia? She was almost overwhelmed with the most unbearable pity and she started to withdraw her hand — but his reached out and gripped it so hard she almost cried out in pain. Was this the first time she had felt physical pain since her death? He raised his eyes to meet hers and at last she saw a Sephiroth she recognised — full of pride and hate. “No,” he said, disgusted. “You’re not my mother.”

“No,” she said, wrenching her hand from his grip. “I could never create something as foul as you.”

* * *

The unending cycle of souls continued to turn but Aerith and Sephiroth remained the same, two fixed points in the endless shifting lifestream. Aerith watched as the years passed and the spirit energy sucked back and surged forward like the tide as people were born and died.

In the world of the living her friends grew older, shifting and changing while she remained crystallised. Barret built Avalanche into a large organisation which provided healthcare and infrastructure to the people displaced by Meteorfall as he watched his daughter grow. Reeve contributed his knowledge and experience from his time in Shinra’s urban development department — somehow he and Barret fell into an easy partnership. Every year Barret returned with Marlene to the church in what had been the Sector 5 slums to talk to Aerith as if she were still there — and although he couldn’t hear her, she answered. Sometimes Cid or Vincent came with him. Yuffie founded a new chapter of Avalanche dedicated to preserving Wutai’s independence. Nanaki embarked on a long pilgrimage before returning to the place of his birth.

And Cloud and Tifa —

“It must kill you all over,” Sephiroth said, maliciously, provoking her. “To see the man you gave your life for forget you like this.”

Aerith met his gaze. “You really don’t get it,” she said. “I wanted this.”

He approached her then and pressed his fist into her stomach — in the place where he had once wounded her beyond repair. Aerith fell forward, overcome with nausea, grabbing at his wrist. The pain in her abdomen pushed itself down every nerve in her body. She gasped, and she heard Sephiroth’s laugh echoing around her.

“There’s no need to act as if you’re not sad,” he said, so close to her ear she could feel his breath on her neck.

Aerith braced everything she had, had ever have, would ever had, and drew on the strength of time and dimension to pull his fist from her body and shove him bodily back from her as she drew herself back to her full height.

“What do I have to be sad about?” she said.

He grinned. Something sticky was seeping through her dress.

* * *

One by one her friends died and returned to the planet. Aerith watched as Vincent and Nanaki lost friend and comrade after friend and comrade until, at last even Vincent faded and Nanaki was left alone in the land of the living.

Some hundreds of years later Nanaki finally laid his head down for the last time — and with him, the last memory of who she had been in life also faded. She and Sephiroth both had been forgotten. She and Sephiroth both were trapped in this liminal space between the planet and the sky.

She knew he hated her. In his eyes the injury she had inflicted on him by preventing his ascension to godhood was worse than that which he had inflicted on her. But there was something she sensed beneath that: he felt haunted by her. For almost a thousand years she and Sephiroth had been companions in the lifestream — two souls, trapped together, unable to dissipate. Over time Aerith had felt that she had come to represent something less — and yet worse — than the person who had prevented him from subverting the planet’s will.

She was the stain on his hands.

Of all the people Sephiroth had killed, Aerith was the one who was always with him. He could not escape her. He could not forget her and he could not be forgotten by her.

* * *

“Why don't you leave?” he asked her, long after she had given up charting the years. There was an acid bite to his voice. She realised then that he thought it was her choice.

“You really don’t know?” she said. He glowered down at her. Her mouth fell open in shock. “You won’t let me.”

* * *

She had realised long ago that it was his will, his malevolence, his — something — which kept her in limbo, trapped between life and rebirth. She suspected that he too was trapped, that he too wished to dissolve at last into the lifestream — to open his mouth wide and give one final sigh of relief. Whether it was Jenova or pride or even guilt which held him back she didn’t know. All she knew was that in some way he was the reason that she was trapped — he needed her, or he wanted her. He had bound her to him without even realising it. That moment a thousand lifetimes ago now had forever tied them together.

That moment. It held so little significance to her now, yet it held the only significance. Of all the moments which had passed through her hands and dissipated like drops of rain, this was the one keeping her here. For Sephiroth, it had held no significance at all at the time. Yet it had bloomed — no, metastasised — in significance for him. And he didn’t even realise it.

After that he became a tragic figure in her eyes, a wandering soul. She could no longer resent him even for fixing her in this moment with him. After all this time he was the only one left with her — he was ... devoted ... to her. And he was ... everything ... to her.

Everything to her. Was that right? After all her friends had wilted and died and dissipated into the lifestream it was true, he _was_ everything to her — and she knew, she felt, that she was everything to him. After millennia wandering the lifestream his desire to become one with the planet and direct its will — that power which she had, which he had coveted — had fallen from him like withered petals. All they had now was each other.

He came to her and stood before her. She found that she knew how he felt without speaking — she found that she felt the same way. She opened her arms to him. He fell into them.

‘Now we are one,’ she thought.

Let my soul rest in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> The last couple of lines were lifted from "Consummation" by Nina Simone.
> 
> Come say hi on [twitter](http://twitter.com/theoceanblooms) or [tumblr](http://spectroscopes.tumblr.com)! If you really liked this fic, it would be lovely if you could [reblog](https://www.tumblr.com/reblog/621586738451775489/0ipxckpK) on tumblr.


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